You have to hand it over to NASA guys that once they set their mind on something, they leave no stone unturned in achieving it. They take up the challenge and will not rest till they have found a solution to it. So, in that sense, Mark Rober, a former NASA engineer, was no different.
His impossible sounding dream was to make sand behave like a liquid! And he was determined not to rest till he achieves his long-cherished dream of creating ‘liquid sand’.
Of course, achieving this wasn’t easy. When he browsed the internet to gain some information on how to go about creating it, he found nothing. This did not discourage him and, instead, prodded him to go for patent drawings for huge industrial-sized beds. He studied a whole lot of them and tried many ways.
It took a total of 25 failed attempts for Rober to get it right. He succeeded in making a solid/fluid mixture behave as a liquid. After painstaking efforts, he managed to fluidized the sand in his hot tub.
He not only created this ‘liquid sand’ but also meticulously-documented the entire process of filling his hot tub with this sand that behaves like a liquid. And, boy, did he have fun playing in this sand, along with his nephew!
In this entertaining video, he explains everything in simple language that he has liberally spiked with dollops of humour. He defines fluidized beds as “a physical phenomenon occurring when a quantity of a solid particulate substance is placed under appropriate conditions to cause a solid/fluid mixture to behave as a fluid.”
Rober further states, “…I noticed that instead of one big inlet (in the massive industrial-sized fluid beds), they all had a bunch of small holes to deliver (the) air.” This revelation led him to make the sand ripple and bubble, just like a liquid, when he blew air into the bottom of the sand container through a number of small holes.
The air blown at the bottom of the sand container increased the space between individual sand particles, which reduced friction and allowed the particles to move around freely, just as they would in a liquid.
Watch The Video How He Turn The Sand into Liquid Below
Rober’s invention will prove a godsend for toddlers who love to play in the sand. Now, instead of playing, they will be swimming in it!
